Multichannel audio listening experience

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Debu
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#1 erstellt: 12. Nov 2006, 17:29

Hi,

Sharing my experiences with multichannel audio listening, hope this would be useful for others too.

This is for listening ordinary 2 channel audio cd in various surround modes, I must say that comparison was confusing initially, and reached at the conclusions after listening to various source material for extended period of time with innumerable mode switchings.

Here is the list with descending order of preference:
1. Denon 5 channel stereo (guess other receivers would have similar thing of their own)
2. Dolby PLII
3. Matrix DSP mode
4. DTS Neo

The above is for good quality recorded material. However interestingly, the Matrix DSP mode sounded the best for old music with noisy recordings.

Also listened a lot to stereo/ direct mode, somehow did not find the zing, and back to multichannel listening.

- Debu

SDhawan
Stammgast

#2 erstellt: 12. Nov 2006, 18:39

Hi !

I have had a somewhat different experience. Besides using the above modes for normal 2-channel recordings, I have heard some real multichannel stuff.

I have heard multichannel SACDs & DVD-A on following setup:

-Denon DVD-1920 Universal Player
-Marants SR4500 AVR
-Boston Speakers in 7.1 configuration

Multichannel music appears confusing & frilly. And the quality to 2-channels pure stereo from these sources is mind-blowing. I find SACD marginally better than DVD-A (but it's a rather pre-mature opinion on my part).

abhi.pani
Inventar

#3 erstellt: 13. Nov 2006, 06:22

Debu,
Expecting an AVR to perform well (with all that Zing thing) in 2 channel mode is just too much and I would rather say its fatal. For that we have Stereo amps.

Otherwise, get yourself 5 discrete channels of amplifications and connect it to a 5 channel processor (to get pseudo surround), then you may get all that attack and zing in Stereo as well as multichannel mode.
AVRs just dont do stereo.

Debu
Ist häufiger hier

#4 erstellt: 13. Nov 2006, 18:05

Expecting an AVR to perform well (with all that Zing thing) in 2 channel mode is just too much

Right, I want to experiment with pre-pro + multichannel amp combination and compare the return of investment with the receiver.

My basic point of comparison was for different multichannel modes with 2channel sources with the receiver being same.

- Debu

Debu
Ist häufiger hier

#5 erstellt: 13. Nov 2006, 18:16

Multichannel music appears confusing & frilly

Some tips I found useful to extract the most from multichannel music:

- Ensure that all channels have same loudness and preferably same speaker. The centre channel at +3dB may be a good setting for movies, however it would distort the soundstage for music.

- Are the surround speakers located too close to wall, moving them bit away from walls might help.

- Avoid bipole/ dipole/ quadrapole speakers if possible, and use only monopoles.

- Check the distance settings, do not use approximations, actually measure straight line distance from the speakers to your favourite listening area to program the receiver.

- Preferably use speakers with >=5.25 inch woofers, put all of them them in large mode, rather than small, and put the subwoofer in main mode.

Hope your surround sound experience would improve.

- Debu

SDhawan
Stammgast

#6 erstellt: 14. Nov 2006, 07:03

Please note that in my earlier comments I was not comparing an AVR with a Stereo amp - those comments were not about the hardware.

I have purely expressed my opinion about true discrete multi-channel music from SACDs & DVD-A with the 2-channel Stereo music from the same sources on the same equipment. And MY conclusion is that stereo is far more appealing than multi-channel.

Of course I have taken care of all the points about the mutlichannel setup.